Best newbie recipes for the instant pot

While I really love my instant pot (IP) it was a little overwhelming when I first got it. It is so weird not to be able to see my food cooking! I'm used to taking a peak to see how it looks while it's cooking!

If you're new to the IP or thinking about buying one (the holiday sales are here!) you can read all about why I love mine here. If you already have yours but aren't sure what to do, check out my suggestions for easy recipes for new IP owners!

1. Basic pulled pork
This was quickest and easiest pulled pork I've every made. The IP really shines when cooking meat that is normally prepared "low and slow."

Put a 4lb pork butt or shoulder on top of your trivet, pour on a cup of water and a cup of barbecue sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ) and set the IP on manual, high pressure for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Natural pressure release (NPR) for 10-20 minutes and then quick release (QR). Overall cook and prep time is less than 2 hours, quite a bit less.

2. Butternut squash
Much easier and faster than roasting it in the oven. It's a game changer. Directions are here.

3. Baked potatoes
I love baked potatoes (especially to take to work for lunch) but they take a really long time in the oven. I ain't got time for that. Now I make them in my instant pot in half an hour. Here is a recipe I like from Aunt Bees Recipes. If your potatoes are really big, you might need to add a couple of extra minutes. The first time I did this I had really big potatoes and they were a little under-done. Like cooking in the oven or on the stove, you'll get a feel for that an know when to add 1-2 extra minutes over time.

4. Chicken black bean rice burrito bowls
This is my go-to instant pot whole meal. I love it and it's somewhat healthy, until I cover it in sour cream. Then it's delicious. Here is the recipe from Cook Fast Eat Well. I made this every other week when I first got my IP. It makes a great dinner for 2 with leftovers for another 2 meals for each of us.

5. Mac and cheese
I love making mac and cheese in the IP, I might never buy boxed mac again. I started with this recipe from Dad Cooks Dinner but I even found his to be more complicated than necessary. I don't add the butter, mustard or hot pepper sauce and I use whatever cheese mix I have on hand, usually about 50% cheddar. Sometimes I toss in a few drops of liquid smoke when mixing in the cheese to give a smokier flavor. If I'm being fancy I will toast the bread crumbs on top but a lot of times I will skip that too.

Still a little unsure of where to start? Check out my 6 tips for new IP owners and the most useful accessories to go with your new IP!

Potato Pancetta soup in the instant pot

This was my first time winging it for the instant pot! I felt brave. It was delicious.

It was loosely based on a crockpot potato soup I've been making for years but now adjusted for my instant pot!

I took this photo before putting cheese on top!

1-2 TB of olive oil

1/2 tsp of chopped garlic (I use the jar kind, like this)

8 oz of pancetta (2 packages)

5-6 russet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (you can use another kind but you might need more if they are smaller)

1 quart of chicken broth

1/2 head of broccoli chopped (could omit if you don't like it, I added it to sneak in some veggies)

1/4 tsp of celery seed

pepper to taste (I didn't add salt because the pancetta is salty, you can if you want it saltier)

4 oz of cream cheese, cut into small cubes

cheddar cheese for garnish (optional but yummy!)

Directions:

Turn on your instant pot and set to saute on high temperature. Add olive oil to pot and when it's warm add the garlic. Saute garlic for 1-2 minutes and add pancetta. Cook the pancetta 5-7 minutes until fully cooked. Add the chicken broth, potatoes, broccoli, celery seed and pepper to the pot. Ensure there is enough liquid to cover the contents of the pot and if not add additional broth or water. Turn the instant pot to pressure cook on high temperature and set the time for 12 minutes. Make sure the vent is set to sealing.

After the pressure cooking is finished do a quick pressure release. When the pressure has released, change the pot back to saute and add the cubes of cream cheese, stirring as you do so. Allow soup to simmer for 4-5 minutes to melt the cream cheese into the soup, then serve with shredded cheese on top!

Note: I used a 6 qt instant pot.

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Simple (non-authentic) pork wonton soup

Wonton packed soup!

If you haven’t visited your local Asian market, you really need to check it out! Though I sometimes find it a little overwhelming since I don’t know what 90% of the things they sell are for, let alone how to use them (packages are often not in English) if you look around a little you can find some really great stuff that is easy to use even if you don’t speak Chinese/Korean/Japanese J

My favorite aisle is the frozen dumpling aisle. In part because I know what they are and how to cook them but mostly because there are SO many different kinds of dumplings. I buy different ones every time I go there (hint: we never like the shrimp dumplings). However, I always make sure I pick up some pork wontons for making soup.

Full disclosure: my wonton soup is really, really not authentic. I have no idea how they make it in Asian restaurants but this tastes good.

This is an easy recipe and as such it’s not an exact science, I usually just throw it together and have put together the rough directions to share. If you aren’t a “throw it together” type of cook, power through, I promise you can do this one too.

Ingredients:

1lb mild Italian Sausage (I use turkey sometimes and pork sometimes)

3 stalks diced celery

Optional: additional diced veggies if you are feeling healthy! Options include onions, bell peppers, zucchini and mushrooms

1 cube bullion (chicken or veggie is fine)

1 tb garlic

1 tb onion powder (you might omit if adding onions)

Fresh ground pepper to taste

3 TB soy sauce

1 tb white vinegar

Water

A few splashes of fish sauce

Directions:

Remove sausage from casings and crumble in the bottom of a large soup pot (I use a 5 qt cast iron Dutch oven). Cook the sausage on med-high heat, crumbling it as it cooks (you might need to add a small bit of oil if the sausage is very lean). When the sausage is 50% cooked, add the diced celery and any additional veggies you’d like and all the spices. When the sausage is fully cooked, pour enough water in to fully cover the contents of the pot. Add the bouillon cube, soy sauce, vinegar and fish sauce. Boil 5-10 minutes.

Add your wontons and additional water so the contents are still covered and boil another 10-15 minutes until the wontons are fully cooked.

Makes approx. 8 bowl-sized servings of soup

Enjoy!

Mofongo

One reason I haven't posted in a while, is that I was on vacation last week! I went to Puerto Rico with a friend and have come back very tan. You might be wondering, what are the tasty things to eat in Puerto Rico? Good question!

In the cab from the airport, my friend and I had the fortune to have a very dynamic driver. Not only did he point out all of the interesting sites we passed but he also recommended multiple restaurants. He told us the typical dish from Puerto Rico is monfongo - green (unripe) plantains mashed and stuffed with some kind of meat. You can stuff it with pork, chicken, beef or seafood. We went to one of the restaurants he recommended, called Raices, which had a whole mofongo menu.

I had mofongo with fried pork, delicious!

Slow cooker ribs - dinner success! Diet fail!

I've been staring at ribs at the grocery store all summer. More than once I put them in my cart, wheeled them around while I did my shopping and then decided to return them to the meat section. They can be a bit pricey and I felt they were impractical for one person because the packages are so large! But earlier this week at my local Safeway (or un-safeway as it's known around DC), they had country style pork ribs for .99/lb. I couldn't pass it up, so I bought some (5lbs!) and took them home.

I had no idea what to do with them.

I don't remember ever eating ribs until my mom married my step-dad. He makes a mean rack of ribs - bar-be-cued, beer marinated, slow-cooked or smoked, they're always delicious.

They seemed a good match for the crock pot, they could slowly cook and become tender and juicy while I was at work. After my numerous crock pot disasters, I did not want to risk messing up my ribs so I called mom to get rib advice. She told me to broil them before I put them in the crock pot but otherwise there wasn't anything special I needed to do except cover them with bbq sauce.

So one night I set out on my rib adventure. I rubbed them with garlic, sea salt and paprika. I would have also used pepper but I was out! I set the oven to broil and cooked them 8-10 minutes on each side. Alright, one side was a little longer because I got distracted and forgot to take them out. Oops.

I let them cool a bit and placed them in my crock pot. I poured BBQ on top and a little bit of water, maybe 1/2 cup. I put the crock pot in the refrigerator for the night and then in the cooker the next morning before work. I turned it on low to cook while I was gone, it was about 9 hours before I got home.

Results? They were fantastic. I had made 2.5lbs and put the rest in the freezer. For dinner that night I think I ate a pound of pork. Did I mention I'm on a diet? Yea a pound of pork for dinner is a huge diet failure but it was good I could not help myself. I think I could have eaten all 2.5lbs in one sitting.

I should have probably put a little more liquid in the crock pot because the exposed parts of the ribs got a little charred looking but even the charred bits tasted amazing. I can't wait to make the other half but I should probably wait a few weeks, since I'm supposed to be dieting...